Ch. 73: Vegeta the Master Thief

"He couldn't have gone that far." Zarbon was panicking, and Frieza was furious. Even now, as Zarbon looked around for signs of Vegeta, Lord Frieza was screaming at him from the ship below,

"What are you waiting for, you fool! Get out of my sight! Go find him! Now!" He screamed. Zarbon quickly shouted in the affirmative, but he wasn't entirely sure where to go looking.

...

Meanwhile, Vegeta was nearby. He chose to dive underwater to get away. Since Zarbon couldn't detect power levels, as long as Vegeta stayed out of sight, he'd be perfectly untraceable and the Saiyan knew it.

He travelled underwater for a few miles, taking full advantage of his powerful Saiyan lungs, before emerging near where he suspected the Dragon Balls to be.

"Now, with any luck, they must be around here." Vegeta muttered to himself, looking around. It didn't take him long to find them. "How about that. All lined up in a row. Sometimes, I even impress myself!" He laughed, "That makes six!" He laughed, imagining his future as an immortal, all powerful ruler of the universe. 

His fantasies were cut short by approaching figures. "Great, someone's coming. Is it Zarbon? No... It's about the same strength, but there are two of them, and one's far weaker. I should go check it out.... Ah!" 

Vegeta had been suppressing his power level since the Frieza incident, out of needless caution. As a result, Piccolo hadn't sensed him, and I pretended not to. We were flying right overhead at my technical current maximum speed.

By the way, Guru had made the excuse that he couldn't bring out my latent power because 'There's too much of it. You may grow quicker in the future thanks to this, but the results will not be instantaneous.' He was a good actor.

"That's the Namekian from Earth, and that's Kakarot's daughter. So, they are here... and the Namekian's gotten strong... I should be cautious." Vegeta decided. In the original canon, Vegeta'd been able to easily stomp Krillin into the ground even after his power-up. He hadn't bothered with caution because of that, but Piccolo was currently roughly as strong as he was. If I had been alone, he probably would have attacked me just like he did to Krillin in the canon, but with Piccolo by my side, he wasn't so stupid.

"At least I know where the last Dragon Ball is. I should thank them for finding it for me. I'd go find Nappa... but..." He knew that we could suppress our power levels at will. Finding us if he lost track now would be a herculean task. Dropping his power level a little bit, Vegeta followed us from as far a distance as he could muster.

"Damn. They're going at a pretty good pace." He muttered, afraid that we'd notice him. Luckily for him, Piccolo was still having trouble controlling all of his new power. 

Unfortunately for him, Piccolo wasn't so caught up in his new power that he wouldn't notice two people following us. When Zarbon found Vegeta and began following him, Piccolo almost stopped in surprise, noticing the two strong power levels behind him.

"Hanna!" He shouted to me, "Do you sense that?!" He asked.

"Now that you mention it, yeah! The closer one's Vegeta, but I didn't notice him before because he was being overshadowed by your aura." I said.

"AARGH!" Piccolo shouted, cursing our bad luck.

...

"Alright, Raditz. Time for seventy times normal gravity!" Goku said. He and Raditz were going at a good pace, training-wise. Since they'd started at such a high level compared to Goku's canon counterpart, it was only natural that they'd be further along than him, too. 

"Kakarot..." Raditz was still weaker than Goku, though.

"You said it yourself, Raditz. We need to push ourselves, or we'll be pretty much useless on Namek." Goku chided his brother.

"You're right, Kakarot. I'll up the gravity." Raditz went to the machine, but right before he pressed the button, he and Goku both flopped to the ground.

"Raditz, that's not seventy times Earth's gravity!" Goku said.

"Obviously, Kakarot!" Raditz yelled at his brother, "The thing went crazy before I could touch it!"

"Goku, Raditz, I noticed you jumped straight from seventy times Earth's gravity to one hundred times. I honestly think you're crazy. There's no way you're ready for it." Dr. Brief's monitor broadcasted the doctor's chiding from Earth.

"Obviously! The stupid thing went nuts!" Raditz yelled back, "What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing! It's a state-of-the-art machine... It even has a cappuccino machine. Let me take a look, I should be able to do a diagnostic test from my terminal here... I hooked it up to the ship's frequency before we left..." Dr. Brief started mumbling to himself, punching things in on his terminal. Raditz resisted the urge to shout at him. "Oh! There's the problem!" 

"What, doctor?" Goku asked from the floor.

"There isn't one! It seems that I overlooked a little flaw in the machine's design."

"Whaaat!?" Raditz yelled.

"Yes... It seems that the machine actually monitors the strength of the people inside of it. Once they reach a certain strength, the machine goes into a mode that is apparently called 'All-or-Nothing.'" Dr. Brief explained. All-Or-Nothing was something that we'd set up when we created the thing in the Core, since the ship was designed to be impervious to the magnetic storms that made canon Goku start training in 100 times gravity. Once the two of them reached a certain point in their training, which Chelsea would set on the fly, then the machine would stop being programmable, instead doing either 100 times, or nothing. This was to ensure that the two got the most possible out of their training. Chelsea had just decided that they were ready for it now, so she'd used the machine to mercilessly crush the two of them into the floor.

...

"Are you sure they're strong enough for it?" One of the girls asked Chelsea, from the room that I'd dubbed the "Well." It allowed those in the Core to look out into the greater Cosmos without being detectable. Even angels would have a tough time detecting a portal if it was made by the Well.

"If they can get to the Senzu Beans, they will be. Plus, the floor's enchanted, so their blood won't dirty it." Chelsea answered the girl cheerily, putting more emphasis on the cleanliness of the floor than my dad's life. Not really surprising, though. "Can I turn this off now? I wanna focus on Mistress, and this is getting in my way."

The girls unanimously agreed with her.